


Made of Ivory and Gold

by FrozenBrownie



Category: Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them (Movies), Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Art, I Wrote This Instead of Sleeping, M/M, Vienna, World War I, dark-ish Grindeldore if you squint, mentions of Oscar Wilde
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-31
Updated: 2019-03-31
Packaged: 2019-12-29 19:44:58
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,045
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18300761
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FrozenBrownie/pseuds/FrozenBrownie
Summary: Gellert is halfway across Europe when Albus has the grand epiphany. It's entirely, unacceptably stupid that he hasn't thought of it before, and that he does, now, drenched by rain and the dread of war, feels like an insult to his own intelligence. Or: Don't leave Albus Dumbledore alone with Gellert away on a mission, he might just figure out how to end the Great War and blow the Statute of Secrecy into pieces through portraits alone.





	Made of Ivory and Gold

**Author's Note:**

> Through [this stunning piece of manip](https://bloodtroth.tumblr.com/post/183803286669/bloodtroth-dark-grindeldore-au%22) by [bloodtroth on tumblr](https://bloodtroth.tumblr.com/) I developed a massive plotbunny yesterday night, I'm on semester holiday and had nothing better to do, honestly, so this happened. I blame it entirely on one of my closest friends being an absolute sucker for dark Grindeldore AU, but apparently, I can't write Albus as a bad person even if I want to, so this is as close as I'll ever get. Unbeta'd because I just wanted to get it out there to continue falling down the Stucky rabbit hole. Feel free to scream at me on Tumblr: [dreamingbrownie](https://dreamingbrownie.tumblr.com/)

**Made of ivory and gold**  
  
Gellert is halfway across Europe when Albus has the grand epiphany. It's entirely, unacceptably stupid that he hasn't thought of it before, and that he does, now, drenched by rain and the dread of war, feels like an insult to his own intelligence. He promptly gets up and turns their small sitting room in a flat entirely too small for the two of them situated in the midst of Vienna into a complete mess. He has to get this right. He has to. Weeks, months, he's been wondering how in all seven hells Gellert stands watching boys and men alike die with shrapnel in their throats, bullets in their chests, and now he sees. Oh, Albus sees, and he won't sleep for three days straight. Where is his other half the one time he really, bloody fucking really needs him here right this very second?  
They've been treating the Great War (and if that isn't the most horribly glorifying description of soldiers dying in the earth they'll be buried in anyone has ever come up with) and The Cause as separate issues, not to speak of the Hallows on which Gellert has all but given up on two years ago, and that was monumentally stupid. Albus scrambles for paper and a proper pen, no quill, thank you, and still gets ink over his entire right hand in his hurry. Normally, he'd take notes. Now, he is drawing. Oh, Gellert will be so proud when he comes home, _if_ \- stop right there, Albus thinks, takes a deep breath and begins to draw the end of the thrice damned Statute and the preposterous British law of non-interference with a pencil as sharp as his tongue.  
  
It's achingly slow, at first. He's good at objects, a side-effect of inventing new spells and becoming a master in Transfiguration at the age of 21, but humans are harder. Much, much harder. Still, he could trace Gellert's features in his sleep, recognize his face carved in ivory and gold, his greek body formed out of marble by touch alone. There is magic seeping into the rough paper, drenching it as Albus himself is still dripping from the heavy downpour. He probably should have dried off first. A bath, towel off, leave any unnecessary fabric on the floor. It's the middle of June and he's bursting with nervous energy that the oppressing humidity of the past week isn't entirely to fault for. Every line, every touch and arch he draws not with precision, but with intent, whispering spells under his breath without his wand in hand. Gellert has the Elder Wand right now. It would have come in handy, but then, the result is just what he wanted.  
  
For Albus, the portrait doesn't move an inch, although Gellert's mismatched eyes seem to be shining with a sorry excuse of the light they hold in real life. To the unthinking muggle girl he thrusts the portrait at only hours later, asking, too innocent to even fool his own ears, if she has seen this man, it does.   
“He blinked at me!" she screams and backs away, eyes as wide as Ariana’s on her dying day. Albus tucks it away safely without folding, caresses the edges of it, smiles quietly.   
“Thank you," he says and disappears into the same dirty gutter that he appeared from.  
  
He doesn't sleep, he forgets to eat, lets the one single window stand wide open all day to smell the city while Gellert isn't here to lecture him for it. Drawing becomes almost as important as making tea, the sweeps of his pencil as practiced as the exact steeping time while the black leaves unfold in hot water to three times their dried size. Albus covers their kitchen table, the worn sofa and even the wall over their bed in portraits of Gellert and himself. The latter is even harder to achieve even remotely to his satisfaction, and he briefly ponders drawing some of their closest acquaintances without asking first, but in the end, it's only them, fading into an outside view of a military hospital near Verdun that hasn't left his nightmares since they visited it some weeks ago. Gellert's charming features, the letters _There to help_ or even _Here for you_ upon the graceful curve of his neck, the hospital on that freezing autumn afternoon, and Gellert again. Albus has to use a spell each time to turn it for himself, but that's how he knows that they work. Staring at them as long as he does only gets him a blank paper stare in return, not the charming smile he has fallen for fast and hard, not a wink he'd get on his knees for without having been asked at all. It's so achingly, monumentally simple, it really strikes him as odd that neither of them has thought of it. They are so used to moving portraits, posters, advertisements that seeing a still sketch throws him off-centre every time he finishes another one. Yes, he could have copied them with the flick of his wrist. No, he does not count the hours until Gellert comes back. Will come back. Has to. Instead, he draws, and finally feels like taking a step into the right direction.  
  
Days go by without a sign or so much as a word. When he reaches the mark of thirty portraits done in perfection, though he still is of the opinion that some old friends of his could have drawn them better, with more life in them, reality slowly creeps up on him until he's tossing and turning during the little hours of rest. Albus knows, rationally, that he can’t go on like this, should begin to ask around, maybe even take the leap of faith and apparate into France on his own, but where to start? Europe is big, the planet is bigger and he’s entirely on his own. So what he does is stocking up their healing supplies and canned food, getting a new coat which is too beautiful in its deep shade of crimson to walk past and settling back into the quiet routine of drawing for the cause. For all that the picture of him sitting in the worn old armchair, drawing with a cup of tea long gone cold on the table in front of him should have been a peaceful one, the sound of rain on the cobblestone and people shuffling by, Albus feels like bursting out of his skin.   
  
It’s the night before the day he has decided to set his deadline on, before he will head out, before he will risk his life (again) to save Gellert’s pleasing backside from whatever mess he has gotten himself into this time. Albus has given up on his recent self-portrait due to his hands hurting too much to continue, he doesn’t want to ruin it, after all, and sketching little Gellert in all his naked glory into the upper left corner, failing spectacularly at a full body picture as long as his pinky, doesn’t exactly help saving the Wizarding World either. Instead he tries to read, Dorian Gray again because _How is that disaster of a boy not Gellert?_ Despite the fact that he has memorized every line, every damning evidence of a corrupting love down to the French poem about Venice right before the very end.   
_Behind every exquisite thing that existed, there was something tragic_ _,_ he reads, sighs and puts Oscar Wilde’s masterpiece away. No use in dwelling on a genius gone before his time, on the misfortune that has befallen him through his art, his friends, his lover’s father-  
  
Albus jumps onto his feet, wand drawn, before his bloodstream can catch up with the sudden change. No words he knows in English, Latin, French or heavily accented German could have described the strange feeling that has him shooting out of his armchair like a whip unleashed; a tingling sensation envelops him from head to toe and his long auburn hair crackles with energy. There, in the doorway to the outer world currently drowning in black, Gellert holds up both his pale hands, unmoving. Half a smile forms on his lips of ivory, it doesn’t reach his eyes. One of them is so entirely black that Albus fears for a second that he has gone half-blind, or been hit by some stray spell, cursed or worse. Gellert’s name falls into the space between the two of them, a soft exhale, a relieved plea. He gets to his senses when he sees the confusion setting in, raising two perfect blonde eyebrows.   
“The first thing I ever said to you?”  
It's rushed, unnecessary, he _feels_ his other half, his betrothed, the man his life resolves around standing right there on the threshold. Put together neatly, pride perched in those strong shoulders. Still, these are their rules.   
“You will find nothing here.” They share a breathless smile before Gellert is all over him, long limbs and hot mouth, slightly damp from the rain outside, already drying under some spell or other. Albus keens into the bruising kiss, curls his left hand around their blood pendant like it's Gellert’s actual heart and buries the other in unruly blonde curls. His nerves are on fire, his pulse rebelling against the constrictions of flesh and blood, every inch of his skin feels shockingly cold against the heat that is his husband.   
“And how very wrong you were, my dear Albus. I found you, after all.” Gellert’s eyebrows are still raised, though in amusement, and he looks around as if he’s never been in here at all. Albus colours a bit, feels the warmth creeping into his cheeks, his laugh sounds sheepish. Gesturing at the grand mass of portraits that he has finished explains absolutely nothing. Some of them are in the process of being coloured, a handful realistically, others very much the fabric of his dreams. They flank the only window like curtains, cover the sofa, hover in mid-air where there is no flat surface to be found anymore. Their hands link on their own accord.   
“Yes, well. Don’t let it get to your head, this isn’t actually all about you, though I admit that I missed you rather a lot. I was _this close_ to getting everything packed to go and search for you.”  
Gellert, entirely unimpressed, kisses his forehead and shrugs out of his grey travel coat. The heavy wool has some dried spots on it that aren’t to be examined closer if Albus wants to sleep at all tonight, a dark, dried brown bordering on dark red at the hem.   
“While I appreciate your worry for my wellbeing, it wasn’t necessary at all. Paris is ours. We can celebrate with a fine white wine I have brought from a cellar beneath the Catacombs – you would love them, believe me, I simply have to take you on a trip down there – and spread the news first thing tomorrow. But may I still enquire when you have developed such stunning skills in the art of drawing?”  
  
Merlin and Morgana, how he has missed that baritone laced in sophisticated charm, each and every English word as British as if Gellert had been born near London, a man of fine tastes and a wicked smile… Albus can’t help but huff out a laugh before he swivels around to collect some of the best portraits he has done so far. The itch to explain himself is back in full force, crawling low under his skin, skittish nerves set in as he makes space on the sitting room table with the sweep of a hand; the papers stack on top of each other neatly in the corner of the room opposite to them.   
“I have solved our problem of lifting the secrecy without causing mass panic. It’s entirely too simple, really, and I apologize for not having thought of it sooner, just hear me out on this. Now – they don’t move for you, no?”  
“No,” Gellert confirms with a crease between his brows, opening the cuffs of his sleeves. Not to stare at his long fingers is almost too much to ask, really, but Albus tears his eyes away nonetheless. Relief floods him anew; so he has done something right after all.   
“Well, they do move for muggles. I tested it with several of them, the spellwork woven into all of it is the exact opposite of a muggle repellent. We see the drawing, nothing more, but if I cast a simple _Revelio_ -“  
“Verdun!” Gellert cries in taking half a step back, though delighted, reading the lines again and again as he takes in his own features through Albus’ lens. The love in every stroke, every touch of charcoal on paper the colour of eggshells bought for the purpose of painting only must be obvious, so very, glaringly obvious. He has poured his yearning down the lines of Gellert’s neck, set the love for each small dot and mark on porcelain skin as if they were rose petals.   
  
Gellert holds Albus’ gaze for a beat longer than they usually do while plotting, looks at him with an intense, scrutinizing stare that has him almost rocking up and down on his feet. Each of those pictures, a black one, a coloured one and a self-portrait appear so thin in his fingers made for wandwork, for the piano and the violin and caressing Albus’ trembling heart, he fears for it to crumble.   
“They are… the most perfect piece of art I have ever seen in my entire life. But more importantly, you are bloody brilliant, Albus Dumbledore.”  
“Told you so,” he gets out in a rush and grins until his face hurts while Gellert sifts through all of the more or less identical pieces individually. His expression varies from pride over sheer delight to something akin to awe, though the calculating gleam never leaves his eyes.   
“I do get your meaning here, of course, and I see why you were angry at yourself for not having thought of this sooner, but there’s no need for that now, love. A revolution doesn’t have to start as a violent one, we vowed to take only the necessary steps for the greater good after all, and I had a lot of time to think about what you said before I left for France. We both want this dreadful war to end, and this, this is…” He exhales, almost trembling, and holds Albus’ favourite against the milky light of the moon streaming through the window into the dusty sitting room. It makes his skin translucent, the paper as thin as linen.   
“A start? A proper plan that might just work?”  
Gellert focusses him sharply, maybe because there is more truth behind Albus’ words than he usually dares to voice out loud, and nods curtly.   
“Yes. That. Heal wounded soldiers with the superior means we possess, save Muggle lives instead of throwing them into the trenches on our own. As frustrated as the masses are with those in powers, they will remember the men that have healed them better than their own leaders. To obliviate entire armies at each other’s throats would be close to impossible. Is that what you had in mind? To work our way up through the ranks, heal those with more weight in the government’s ears?”  
“And let the gossip amongst soldiers do the rest. We even could take away the most dreadful memories of the dying, of those too young to serve,” Albus adds quickly and has to sit down, too overwhelmed by _Gellert, here_ , right in front of him to keep standing. He’s dead on his feet and hyperaware of it.   
  
Silence stretches between them like a living, breathing thing, before all of the portraits go on a single stack held upright by magic alone. The Elder Wand sends the numerous dirty cups of tea, hastily cleaned plates where slices of bread used to sit and a forgotten mantle thrown over the sofa back to where they all belong, the security spells in place get refreshed.   
“Do you happen to have any particular nation in mind to start playing the Samaritan?” Gellert drawls, gaze sharp, knowing, making it impossible for Albus to lie. His answer comes out harder than intended.   
“Great Britain. We can go to the channel, the Eastern Sea, where ever they are wasting their lives on the continent these days. Evermonde can stick his non-intervention up his arse so far he chokes on it.”  
  
“Healing the British, your fellow countrymen, with France at our feet? I like the way you’re thinking.”  
“I like _you,_ ” he snorts and pulls Gellert into his lap, no resistance met, licks into that curve where his neck melts into his shoulder, tasting rain and a hint of sweaty salt. A breathy moan that doesn’t belong to himself makes him shudder, humming with anticipation. “Sod that, I love you. You’ve been gone entirely for too long, I can’t function without you here to bounce my ideas off and maybe I even went a bit over board with all those paintings of you. I just couldn’t stop. Didn’t want to.” Gellert arches into his touch, his body tight and singing like a bow string, something undeniably hard rocks into Albus’ lap not far from a demand.   
“Your self-portraits aren’t bad, either, honestly,” he gasps in a string of words almost too fast to make out, his head dipped back and his lips slightly open while Albus cups his ass through the dark blue fabric. It’s the middle of the night and sleep is as far from their mind as trenches filled with broken bodies.   
Later, when they’re spent and sated for a few hours at least, he will paint his Austrian lover like this. Gellert, naked as the day he was born, on his stomach with his lower legs up in the air, feet pointed like a dancer, the swell of his arse a wonderful model for the sweep of Albus’ pencil. This time, he catches the light in a black and a white eye just right, presses the promise of something sinister into paper and blows out the candles to slot into the hollow space between his legs like a missing puzzle piece.


End file.
